Bozzio/Mastelotto

Normally, it’s safe to assume that when two very skilled drummers get together to make an album that it will consist of some bombastic commercial drum-off, like Alex Van Halen playing to himself in front of a mirror with a delay unit. But jazz-rock guru Terry Bozzio and electronic-analog morphist Pat Mastelotto, two extremely talented and legendary multi-genre percussionists/drummers/tub-thumpers are eons ahead of most, and have played with the best: Frank Zappa, David Sylvian, XTC, Captain Beefheart. On this experimental disc, these twin Harry Partches scholastically and entertainingly operate like white witch voodoo drum doctors — calculatingly pulling the listener away from themselves and taking them to another plane of existence, by tapping out an array of pasty thick, warm earthly tribal patterns on practically any surface, and summoning bizarre metallic bird-like creatures and creating loops of what could be someone speaking in tongues. Instead of "just” rhythms, they play arithmetically as well, thus resetting the listener's heartbeat and showing them another way of thinking. The disc was recorded in Bozzio's garage in Austin by Bill Munyon, and the production is astounding — with high resolution textures and three-dimensional spatiality that will make vines and rivets grow on your speakers. This collaboration is truly a rare gem, and proves that percussion is the key to the musical soul.